The ability for one person to monitor another person's extension is useful in a variety of situations. For example, an administrative assistant can monitor an executive's extension, including whether the extension has a call offering or is in use. As another example, a customer service agent can monitor another agent's extension when the second agent is away from her desk. It is also useful if the monitoring party (e.g., the assistant or agent) can perform functions on a call destined for a monitored extension. These functions can include, for example, answering the call, transferring the call, placing the call on hold, and sending the call to voicemail.
While extension monitoring exists in traditional, keyed telephone systems, it is difficult to implement in enterprise telephony systems. Enterprises often have several offices or call centers that are located in a plurality of disparate locations. To interconnect all of these sites, enterprise telephony systems have been developed. Enterprise telephony systems, which comprise a distributed set of voice switches and servers, offer enterprise applications enabled by the integration of computer systems with telephony services. The software that supports the computer-integrated functionality is generally implemented as a client-server environment in which the participants or clients (distributed telephony users) communicate with a server. Computer-integrated features rely not only on a server's application platform but also on the availability of the network that connects the switches, servers, and application services.
What is needed is a system and method that enables a user to monitor an extension using an enterprise telephony system.